The Game (1997 film)
| writer = John Brancato Michael Ferris | starring = | music = Howard Shore | cinematography = Harris Savides | editing = James Haygood | studio = Propaganda Films | distributor = PolyGram Filmed Entertainment | released = | runtime = 128 minutes | country = United States | language = English | budget = $70 million | gross = $109.4 million }} The Game is a 1997 American mystery thriller film directed by David Fincher, starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, and produced by Propaganda Films and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. It tells the story of a wealthy investment banker who is given a mysterious gift: participation in a game that integrates in strange ways with his everyday life. As the lines between the banker's real life and the game become more uncertain, hints of a large conspiracy become apparent. The Game was well received by critics like Roger Ebert and major periodicals like The New York Times, but had middling box-office returns compared with its budget and the success of Fincher's previous film, Seven (1995). Plot Nicholas Van Orton, a wealthy investment banker, is estranged from both his ex-wife and his younger brother, Conrad. He remains haunted from having seen his father commit suicide on the latter's 48th birthday. For Nicholas's own 48th birthday, Conrad presents Nicholas with an unusual gift—a voucher for a "game" offered by a company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Conrad promises that it will change his brother's life. Nicholas has doubts about CRS, but he meets fellow bankers who enjoyed the game. He goes to CRS's offices to apply and is irritated by the lengthy and time-consuming series of psychological and physical examinations required. He is later informed that his application has been rejected. Soon Nicholas begins to believe that his business, reputation, finances, and safety are at risk. He encounters a waitress, Christine, who appears to have been endangered by the game. Nicholas contacts the police to investigate CRS, but they find the offices abandoned. Eventually, Conrad appears to Nicholas and apologizes, claiming that he, too, has come under attack by CRS. With no one else to turn to, Nicholas finds Christine's home. He soon discovers that she is a CRS employee and that her apartment was staged. Christine tells Nicholas that they are being watched. Nicholas attacks a camera, and armed CRS troops begin to swarm the house and fire upon them. Nicholas and Christine are forced to flee. Christine tells Nicholas that CRS has drained his financial accounts by using the psychological tests to guess his passwords. In a panic, Nicholas calls his bank and gives a verification code to check his account balance and finds out that there is nothing left. Just as he begins to trust Christine, he realizes she has drugged him. As he loses consciousness, she admits that she is actually part of the scam and that he made a fatal mistake by giving up his verification code. Nicholas wakes up to find himself entombed alive in a cemetery in Mexico. He sells his gold watch to escape. He returns to find his mansion foreclosed, most of his possessions removed, and is told Conrad has been committed to a mental institution due to a nervous breakdown. He retrieves a hidden gun and seeks the aid of his ex-wife. While talking with her and apologizing for his neglect and mistreatment, he discovers that Jim Feingold, the CRS employee who had conducted his psychological tests, is an actor working in television advertisements. Nicholas locates Feingold and forces him to find CRS's real office, whereupon he takes Christine hostage. Nicholas demands to be taken to the leader of CRS. Attacked by CRS troops, Nicholas takes Christine to the roof and bars the door behind them. The CRS troops begin cutting through the door. Christine realizes that Nicholas's gun is not a prop and is terrified. She frantically tells Nicholas that the conspiracy is a hoax, a fiction that is just part of the game, that his finances are intact, and that his family and friends are waiting on the other side of the door. He refuses to believe her. The door bursts open, and Nicholas shoots the first person to emerge—Conrad, bearing an open bottle of champagne. Devastated, Nicholas leaps off the roof, and falls through a glass ceiling and miraculously survives as he lands on a giant mattress. As he gets off the mattress he is greeted by his brother who is actually alive and the rest of the people from the game. Conrad tells him that this is his birthday present. Later, he asks the waitress from the game if she'd like to go out for coffee sometime. Cast * Michael Douglas as Nicholas van Orton * Sean Penn as Conrad van Orton * James Rebhorn as Jim Feingold * Deborah Kara Unger as Christine/Claire * Peter Donat as Samuel Sutherland * Carroll Baker as Ilsa * Armin Mueller-Stahl as Anson Baer * Anna Katarina as Elizabeth * Charles Martinet as Nicholas' father * Mark Boone Junior as Shady Private Investigator * Tommy Flanagan as Solicitor/ Taxi Driver * Spike Jonze as Airbag EMT Beltran * Linda Manz as Amy * Daniel Schorr as himself (newscaster) Production Development The Game began as a spec screenplay, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris in 1991. It was sold that year to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), who put the project in turnaround, where it was picked up by Propaganda Films. Director Jonathan Mostow was originally attached to the project with Kyle MacLachlan and Bridget Fonda cast in the lead roles. Principal photography was to start in February 1993 but in early 1992, the project was moved to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. Mostow was no longer the director of the film but instead became an executive producer. Producer Steve Golin bought the script from MGM and gave it to David Fincher in the hopes that he would direct.Swallow 2003, p. 92. Fincher liked the various plot twists but brought in Andrew Kevin Walker, who had worked with him on Seven, to make the character of Nicholas more cynical in nature. Fincher and Walker spent six weeks changing the tone and trying to make the story work. According to David Fincher, there were three primary influences on The Game. Michael Douglas' character was a "fashionable, good-looking Scrooge, lured into a Mission: Impossible situation with a steroid shot in the thigh from The Sting". He said in an interview that his film differs from others of that kind because "movies usually make a pact with the audience that says: we're going to play it straight. What we show you is going to add up. But we don't do that. In that respect, it's about movies and how movies dole out information". Furthermore, Fincher has said that the film is about "loss of control. The purpose of The Game is to take your greatest fear, put it this close to your face and say 'There, you're still alive. It's all right.'"Swallow 2003, p. 91. More revisions were made to the script, including removing a scene where Nicholas kills Christine and then commits suicide, because Fincher felt that this did not make sense. In 1996, Larry Gross and Walker were brought in to make further revisions to the script.Swallow 2003, p. 94. Casting Fincher intended to make The Game before Seven, but when Brad Pitt became available for Seven, that project took priority. The success of Seven helped the producers of The Game get the larger budget that they wanted. Then, they approached Michael Douglas to star in the film. He was hesitant at first because of concerns that PolyGram was not a big enough company to distribute the film. However, once on board, Douglas' presence helped get the film into production. At the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, PolyGram announced that Jodie Foster would be starring in the film with Douglas.Swallow 2003, p. 93. However, Fincher was uncomfortable with putting an actor and movie star of her stature in a supporting part. After talking to her, he considered rewriting the character of Conrad as Nicholas' daughter so that Foster could play that role. However, Douglas didn't like the idea and requested it to change the character to his sister, which Foster found peculiar as Douglas is almost 20 years her senior and also appeared with her in Napoleon and Samantha, when Foster was 9 years old while Douglas was 28. Due to differences in opinions and also scheduling conflicts with Robert Zemeckis's Contact, Foster could not appear in the film. Once she left, the role of Conrad was offered to Jeff Bridges but he declined and Sean Penn was cast instead. Later, Foster alleged that she and PolyGram had orally agreed that she would appear in the film and when this did not transpire, she took out a $54.5 million lawsuit against the company. Deborah Kara Unger's audition for the role of Christine was a test reel consisting of a two-minute sex scene from David Cronenberg's Crash. Douglas thought it was a joke but when he and Fincher met her in person, they were impressed by her acting. Filming Principal photography began on location in San Francisco, despite studio pressure to shoot in Los Angeles which was cheaper. Fincher also considered shooting the film in Chicago and Seattle, but the former had no mansions that were close by and the latter did not have an adequate financial district. The script had been written with San Francisco in mind and he liked the financial district's "old money, Wall Street vibe". However, that area of the city was very busy and hard to move around in. The production shot on weekends in order to have more control. Fincher utilized old stone buildings, small streets and the city's hills to represent the class system pictorially. To convey the old money world, he set many scenes in restaurants with hardwood paneling and red leather. Some of the locations used in the film included Golden Gate Park, the Presidio of San Francisco, and the historic Filoli Mansion, 25 miles south of San Francisco in Woodside, California, which stood in for the Van Orton mansion. For the visual look of Nicholas' wealthy lifestyle, Fincher and the film's cinematographer Harris Savides wanted a "rich and supple" feel and took references from films like The Godfather which featured visually appealing locations with ominous intentions lurking under the surface.Swallow 2003, p. 102. According to Fincher, once Nicholas left his protective world, he and Savides would let fluorescents, neon signs and other lights in the background be overexposed to let "things get a bit wilder out in the real world". For The Game, Fincher employed a Technicolor printing process known as ENR which lent a smoother look to the night sequences. The challenge for him was how much deception could the audience take and "will they go for 45 minutes of red herrings?"Swallow 2003, p. 103. To this end, he tried to stage scenes as simply as possible and use a single camera because "with multiple cameras, you run the risk of boring people with coverage". The scene where Nicholas' taxi drives into the San Francisco Bay was shot near the Embarcadero, with the close-up of Douglas trapped in the back seat filmed on a soundstage at Sony Pictures studio in a large tank of water.Swallow 2003, p. 95. The actor was in a small compartment that was designed to resemble the backseat of a taxi with three cameras capturing the action. Principal photography lasted 100 days with a lot of shooting done at night utilizing numerous locations.Swallow 2003, p. 96. Release The Game was released on September 12, 1997, in 2,403 theaters, grossing $14.3 million during its opening weekend. It went on to make $48.3 million in North America and $61.1 million in the rest of the world for a worldwide total of $109.4 million. On September 18, 2012, The Criterion Collection released The Game on DVD and Blu-ray, making it spine #627 of the collection. They had originally issued the film on Laserdisc in 1997. Reception Critical response The film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 73% of 56 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review, with an average score of 7.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "The ending could use a little work but this is otherwise another sterling example of David Fincher's iron grip on atmosphere and storytelling." Metacritic gives it a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4, praising Douglas as "the right actor for the role. He can play smart, he can play cold, and he can play angry. He is also subtle enough that he never arrives at an emotional plateau before the film does, and never overplays the process of his inner change". In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "Mr. Fincher, like Michael Douglas in the film's leading role, does show real finesse in playing to the paranoia of these times". Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "Fincher's style is so handsomely oppressive, and Douglas' befuddlement is so cagey, that for a while the film recalls smarter excursions into heroic paranoia (The Parallax View, Total Recall)". In his review for The Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "It's formulaic, yet edgy. It's predictable, yet full of surprises. How far you get through this tall tale of a thriller before you give up and howl is a matter of personal taste. But there's much pleasure in Fincher's intricate color schemes, his rich sense of decor, his ability to sustain suspense over long periods of time and his sense of humor". Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B+" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Emotionally, there's not much at stake in The Game — can Nicholas Van Orton be saved?! — but Douglas is the perfect actor to occupy the center of a crazed Rube Goldberg thriller. The movie has the wit to be playful about its own manipulations, even as it exploits them for maximum pulp impact". In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle wrote, "At times The Game is frustrating to watch, but that's just a measure of how well Fincher succeeds in putting us in his hero's shoes". However, Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers felt that "Fincher's effort to cover up the plot holes is all the more noticeable for being strained ... The Game has a sunny, redemptive side that ill suits Fincher and ill serves audiences that share his former affinity for loose ends hauntingly left untied". Retrospect In retrospect, Michael Douglas said: }} David Fincher later admitted in interviews that he was not proud of the movie, explaining his working relationship with his wife, longtime producer Ceán Chaffin, the filmmaker said he picks her brain, and that they’ll often disagree: }} Literary assessment In the Criterion edition film notes, the director was referred to as incorporating elements of the writings taken from Franz Kafka stating: Accolades A sequence from the film deemed to be the most thrilling was ranked #44 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments. See also * Twist ending * Alternate reality game * Simulacra, for a discussion of the simulated environment and simulated drama of The Game References References * External links * * * * * [https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2484-all-in-the-game All in The Game] an essay by David Sterritt at the Criterion Collection Category:1997 films Category:1990s mystery thriller films Category:1990s psychological thriller films Category:American films Category:American mystery thriller films Category:American psychological thriller films Category:English-language films Category:Films about brothers Category:Films directed by David Fincher Category:Films produced by Steve Golin Category:Films scored by Howard Shore Category:Films set in San Francisco Category:Films set in the San Francisco Bay Area Category:Films shot in San Francisco Category:Films with twist endings